Jo Stalley

On Wednesday 4^th March, 95 coaches descended on the Fielder Centre in Hatfield for a day of learning, sharing and developing. With more than 75% of the regional championships qualifying clubs in attendance, it was a great showing and a wonderful opportunity for our coaches to develop. To see so many club coaches both full time and part time (paid and volunteer) coaches in attendance was testament to the engagement that exists in the region. The move to a weekday conference to ease crowding of weekends was very well recieved and even supported by schools who allowed their teaching staff who also coach to attend – so a huge thank you to everyone who came along!

The day opened with a short presentation from the regional talent officer on how working with athletes as people can open many doors in the future, both in their swimming careers and in wider life. He also spoke about how the combined knowledge of 95 coaches was over a 1000 years worth of invaluable resources and the various ways both during the conference and post-event, that would help share that knowledge.

The first guest speaker was Richard Cheetham MBE (Twitter @twowheelprof). UK Coaching in 2018 recognised Richard as their coach developer of the year and he certainly delivered a great experience for our coaches. Talking through the range of ways in which coaches and athletes learned, which involved some really engaging and interactive activities, with one of our coaches winning the coveted £1 prize for their observation skills.

Following Richard was Sport England’s Stuart Armstrong (@stu_arm). He gave a fascinating oversight into the changing way in which coaches are being supporting in this country and how the landscape of training and ongoing coach development is evolving too. For all coaches involved in the sport it is a very exciting time and great to see some long overdue professionalization coming to fruition.

Our final speaker before the lunchbreak really brought the effect of OADF and the principles behind it. Richard Allen, currently the head of football at Loughborough university who was also formerly the head of talent ID for the FA shared some of his experiences from a different perspective in football. Giving some great case studies, most notably Harry Kane, he brought to life the key attributes that enabled Harry’s success in his senior years that were evident early on in his sporting career.

During the lunchbreak the coaches networked, shared ideas and thoughts on the morning’s presentations and contributed to our ‘post-it challenge’, which pulled some key messages from our coaches to help shape future resources. Moving into the afternoon the focus was shifted solely to swimming with two speakers who gave frank and honest accounts of their experiences.

Kevin Brooks (@kevbrookscoach) the head coach at Wycombe District Swimming Club (@wycombe_swim), gave a really insightful account of his journey as a coach and the programme at Wycombe as it’s evolved over the last decade. Kevin demonstrated the various structures that have been put in place to enable the sustainable long term success the club enjoys, including implementation of club awards, the use of OADF across the club and his philosophies on supporting the entire club, not just the performance section.

Following that we had back to back talks from Loughborough National Centre (@NTCLoughborough) Coach Dave Hemmings (@DaveHemmingsGBR). Dave’s first talk was illuminating as to the challenges that working with senior athletes entails, and really brought home not just from an OADF perspective, but to all our age/youth coaches the importance of laying good foundations in the early years when working with a young athlete. His second talk shared lots of stories from ‘the arena’, specifically around managing as a coach and an athlete in pressured environments. Again this is something that coaches could really relate to, whatever level they are working at. We all have an ‘Olympics’ in our club seasons and it is vital for coaches to be mindful of both their own behaviours in pressured environments, but also to develop athletes to be more robust to environmental pressures – it was a very interesting insight.

Finally to round off the event, the regional talent officer hosted open floor questions to both Dave Hemmings and Kevin Brooks. 50 minutes later and the floor were still throwing ideas out there, which really showed how the day had brought out so many thoughts from the attending coaches. It was a brilliant day and a huge thank you is needed, both to the facility for hosting a great event and to the regional board for supporting this great development opportunity. We look ahead to our conference in 2021 – save the date for Wednesday 3^rd March.

If you’re a coach and you’re not already signed up to our various coach communication platforms, our newsletter signup is on the top right of the regional home page and we are on both Twitter and Facebook – just search for “East Region Swimming Coaches Network”. Thank you finally to Blythe Neighbour, our University of Hertfordshire student, who took photographs across the day for us (Insta @bpn.photography)

Half term was a very busy week for our development team with three swimming camps all taking place in the same week! We had two camps on the Monday and Tuesday in Peterborough for a group of athletes who just missed qualifying for the summer national championships in the 18-19 season. The Performance Foundations Camps gave two great groups of athletes the chances to learn and develop both in the water and on land.

Some great nutrition workshops led by Swim England nutritionist, Jasmine Campbell helped the athletes focus in on their nutrition requirements across the national qualifying window this year. Strength and conditioning coaches from Performance Hertfordshire led the pre and post pool sessions, helping the athletes not just to complete exercises but understand the reasoning behind these and how they aid performance in training and on race day. Our pool sessions re-enforced world class basics and how executing the details well every single day is vital to be successful at the higher eschelons of the sport.

Later that week, a small group of our youth/senior athletes travelled to Loughborough for a three day Olympic Trials camp. This year’s British Championships (Olympic Trials) are taking place in London in April and with three finals in each event (junior, transition and open), the three day camp was intended to offer a focused group some support in a range of areas leading into the biggest domestic event every four years. To see what they got up to on this camp, check out the camp video on our Youtube channel.

Are you looking to start your coaching journey with an assistant coach qualification, or are you on the coaching ladder and looking to become a full swimming coach? With the huge growth in open water in recent years we also have a full open swimming coach qualification for swimming coaches looking to expand their qualifications. For 2020-21 we have the following courses planned:

Open Water

1 course available with spaces

Level 2 Coaching Open Water – £325

Online learning starts 12^th June (Blended course).

Face to face dates are 14^th June in Chelmsford and 8^th August in Welwyn Garden City.

Prerequisites (any of the following):

• Level 2 coaching swimming
• Level 2 teaching swimming with experience coaching or open water
• Level 2 coaching triathlon

Booking: Course currently closed to public bookings, priority for East Region clubs but only until the end of February, then the course will open to other regions. Please contact [email protected] to book.

Pool Swimming

3 assistant coaching courses and 1 full coaching course available with spaces

Assistant Swimming Coach (formerly level 1) – £235

3-5^th April Sudbury – Blended learning (pre course work online)

3-5^th April Luton – Blended learning (pre course work online)

4-6^th September Luton – Blended learning (pre course work online)

1 more course to be added January/February 2021

Swimming Coach (formerly level 2) – £500

12^th/13^th/19^th/20^th December Luton – Blended learning (pre course work online)

TBC – somewhere east of the region in summer 2020.

Please contact [email protected] to book.